The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2017–2018
999 Ganmaoling's 'Someone Is Secretly Loving You' flips cold scenes into hidden kindness
999's Thanksgiving 2017 4:25 film showed six cold scenes reverse into hidden kindness — it flooded WeChat and neared 85M Tencent Video plays.
China Resources Sanjiu / 999 (华润三九)
What it had to solve
999 Ganmaoling was a functional cold remedy with little emotional pull, in a year when China's 'sang' (bleak) culture was peaking and heart-warming films were becoming the dominant year-end ad genre. The brand wanted a story that gave the medicine a role beyond symptom relief.
How it works
In late 2017, 999 Ganmaoling, a functional cold remedy from China Resources Sanjiu, released a 4:25 Thanksgiving film called 'Someone Is Secretly Loving You.' The studio behind it, Wudaonongying, first published it on its PGC account Renlei Shiyanshi, where it moved users before spreading across WeChat Moments.
The film opens with six bleak, real-story vignettes: a woman with depression searches online for where to find her artery; an office worker is shouted away from a newsstand; a driver is stopped by police; a delivery rider misses a full elevator; a drunk is photographed at night; an old tricycle scrapes a luxury car. Voiceover paints a world where nobody cares — then each scene reverses: the newsstand owner was scaring off a thief, the policeman was closing a fuel-cap door, the photographer was helping police identify the drunk, and the tricycle driver finds the car owner unexpectedly kind.
The reversal structure turns 'sang culture' anxiety into warmth, and the film's hidden line — 'life is like a heavy cold, we are all waiting to be cured' — quietly gives the cold medicine a role in the story. Reposted by KOLs and media as the year's most heart-warming ad, it became one of the defining Chinese emotional-marketing films of 2017, with Tencent Video plays nearing 85 million.
Why it lands
- The six vignettes are universally recognizable small humiliations, so the empathy lands before the brand appears.
- The reversal structure delivers a genuine emotional payoff instead of a pitch, making the film shareable on its own merits.
- The hidden line 'life is a heavy cold' gives the cold medicine a believable role rather than a product shot.
- Launching on a PGC account let the story spread organically through WeChat before paid distribution mattered.
- Tying the release to Thanksgiving gave people a ready-made reason to forward it.
What it did
The film flooded WeChat Moments on Thanksgiving Day 2017, was reposted by KOLs and media as 'the year's most heart-warming ad,' and neared 85 million plays on Tencent Video. The phrase 'someone is secretly loving you' became a widely quoted line, and the campaign set the template for 999's later warm-story work, including the series 'Thank You, Stranger' and its 'stranger radio' project.
What you can take
Emotion works when it is earned: giving a functional product a real role in a universal human moment — 'life is a cold' — made the brand the warmth of the story, not merely its sponsor.
Since then
The film became the reference point for 999's emotional-marketing run: the brand followed with the four-episode series 'Thank You, Stranger' and later a 'stranger radio' project, keeping the warm-reversal format. The phrase 'someone is secretly loving you' entered Chinese social vocabulary, and the campaign is regularly cited in year-end roundups of China's most heart-warming ads. Critics noted the follow-ups were less successful because the emotion felt manufactured, sharpening the industry debate about when 'walking-heart' advertising actually works.
Sources
- 2017年最走心广告：总有人偷偷爱着你 (2017's most heart-warming ad: Someone Is Secretly Loving You)
- 年末涌来一波走心广告，它们有什么扎心套路？(A wave of heart-warming ads at year-end — what's the formula?)
- 继《有人偷偷爱着你》之后，这一次999的走心广告为什么没刷屏？(After 'Someone Is Secretly Loving You', why didn't 999's next heart-warming ad go viral?)
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